Obligatory New Year Post, Sans Resolution

Yes, I know I posted about 2500 words yesterday, spread across four posts. People may wonder if I get any actual WORK done.

People who have seen me write are sometimes astonished at how fast I type. To be honest, I'M astonished at how fast I type. Sometimes I run into a classic case of the millipede's dilemma,* wherein I suddenly realize I'm not looking at the keyboard AND typing so fast it sounds like a hyperactive four year old running his fingers up and down the keys just to hear the funny noise,** and promptly seize up.

I write quickly as well. That's the problem with some people who aspire to be authors: They confuse the mental art with the physical act of typing. I know a lot of writers (including several who are FAR better published than I can ever hope to be) read this journal, and some of them might disagree, but for myself writing is EASY. It's getting it out of my head and on to the "page" (virtually speaking) that's frustratingly slow, even when I hit > 120 WPM in one of my muse fueled frenzies.

This is obviously not one of those times.

So, even though it looks like I spent hours writing yesterday, it was actually written in just under an hour. It helps that I don't do re-writes for the LJ (my main audience for this blog is myself, after all!)

It was important that I get to this post today, and before I could do that, I needed to catch up with the events of this past weekend and post the pictures from Roni's and my visit to Arizona (which, in one of these strange twists of publishing magic, I plan to do AFTER writing this).

Before going any further, let's get one thing perfectly clear: This isn't a New Year's resolution. For one thing, substantive change doesn't automatically occur because you swear a hallow oath at what is a fairly arbitrary marking of time. There's nothing especially magical (or even Magickal) about NYE, other than the focussed good intentions of billions of people. Sure, that has it's own magick -- but the NYE resolution is so fleeting it is the subject of jokes and sitcoms.

They say writing it down, making a plan and writing THAT down, makes the resolution process a bit "realer" for people. It's also been pointed out that people give up on their resolution the moment the "slip", as if one mistake negates the purpose of the resolution in the first place -- the point being that people should just get back on the equine and ride. To fall is to rise, after all.

I think that the real problem is that people resolve to do stuff because they think (or know) OTHER people expect them to.

I believe that the problem is that change and growth are ongoing. SOmetimes a lot of stuff seems to happen all at once, and the changes are fast and furious. You rise to the challenges, develop into (hopefully) a better person, and move on. Sometimes it's a gradual process, and you don't realize the change until it's pointed out to you, or it strikes you one day.

The most annoying part about such moments is realizing that you were wrong about something, or at least not completely right. One of the harder things for me to learn about these moments was that self-flagellation does not mitigate a thing, and in fact makes things worse for the people who love me.

And thus I (FINALLY!!) get to my look back at 2005.

What a fucking weird year.

This time last year I was still recovering from doing (my last, one knocks on wood) stint as a retail drone during the Holiday season. I was already starting to smell a rat at the Apple store, and began looking in ernest for another position.

In many ways 2005 was a recovery period from the even hairier 2004. Hell. the list of changes from '04 was so long that it makes sense that it took more than a year to recover.

It wasn't until I landed this amazing job during the summer that I began to feel like things were settling. The un-nerving circumstances surrounding my daughter's birth in June, the near-miss in May, and the Herpes Debacle all seemed designed to force me to confront my worst fears -- fears about myself, and about the people around me.

This in no way includes EVERYTHING. There are many things set in motion last year that I literally can't talk about quite yet. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't reveal the details of certain things until they're ready.

I think the upshot of '05 is that it felt a LOT like the period between '94 - '96, which was just as full of turmoil and personal earthquakes. Hopefully the next period like this one past won't happen for another decade or so... I could stand for some slow and steady versus the cosmic pounding with the clue by four.

* Synopsis: A grasshopper meets a millipede, and exclaims "I have enough trouble managing 6 legs, how on earth do you manage 1000?!" The millipede thinks about it for a minute, and is promptly incapable of walking ever again.

Think about it. Better yet... don't.

** Yes, I speak from personal experience, though I was 4 in 1967, so I was doing this to my grandparents piano. It is a sign of their tolerance that they let me do this... to a point.